Round Eye
ROUND EYE RELEASES ‘CULTURE SHOCK TREATMENT’
Shanghai-based freak punk outfit Round Eye just released a new album, entitled Culture Shock Treatment via Paper + Plastick. Essentially, the album is 15-tracks of impudent punk, laced with jazz and retro R&B savors, aimed at The People’s Republic of China.
Round Eye
Formed in 2012, Round Eye has shared the stage with the Descendents, The Fleshtones, MDC, Verbal Abuse, Mike Watt + The Missingmen, D.O.A., The FUs, The Boys (UK), Paul Collins Beat, Twink, Ceremony, Iceage, and eastern VIPs like P.K.14, SMZB, SUBS, and Hang on the Box. Never shy or inhibited, during their tour of China with the UK’s The Boys, the tour had to go underground because they were banned by the Ministry of Culture, which didn’t care for their tour poster’s lascivious artwork.
Shanghai’s City Weekend magazine voted Round Eye “Best Local Band” twice, in successive years. Their music videos are acknowledged masterpieces of punk art, and they shot the first-ever punk video made in North Korea, as well as performing at festivals around the globe.
Round Eye is a crazy good band – raw, innovative, wildly ferocious, and fun – in a supercharged running-amok-bedlam kind of way.
The album begins with the title track, opening on strident, garish colors flowing into a Happy Days-flavored punk-rock melody topped by baroque vocals. Entry points include “5000 years,” which travels on hard-core punk energy bolstered by a stuttering rhythm that starts and stops while shouting voices ride overhead. A spastically braying sax gives the tune a maniacal intensity.
“Circumstances” offers a sample of what Queen would sound like if they decided to take a combination of psychotropic substances, followed by entering a punk rock battle of the bands. Searing, surging energy blended with blazing brass, snarling vocals, and a vicious harmonica makes this song a slayer of eardrums.
“Red Crimes” rolls on thick retro blues tinctures, a chopstick-like piano, and Ricky Nelson-like bad-boy vocals. This track is a personal favorite because of its ooey-gooey retro tang. “You’re So Fucking Cool” features chugging, chopping guitars on the intro, and then advances to alt-rock-like sensibility capped by grinding punk filaments.
Round Eye is a crazy good band – raw, innovative, wildly ferocious, and fun – in a supercharged running-amok-bedlam kind of way.
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